65 Years in Business

This summer, Kaiser celebrated its 65th year of business in precision tool manufacturing. To commemorate its anniversary, the company opened a second building, co-located with its newly expanded and improved factory, in order to better facilitate growing business.

About 300 current, past and retired employees, family and friends gathered for the anniversary event, which featured an outdoor picnic, factory tours, speakers and socializing. “It’s been an incredible journey to 65 years. I remember living on the premises,” said Chris Kaiser, President of BIG Kaiser Precision Tooling, USA. “To see where Kaiser has come since I was a child, and to see where it’s going, is very exciting. We look forward to the next 65 years.” Additionally evidencing Kaiser’s commitment to the next chapter is the recently expanded, state-of-the-art factory dedicated to increasing efficiency and productivity.

Originally, the Kaiser headquarters in Rümlang, Switzerland, was composed of a single building housing both the main factory and administration. In 2006, the company increased production capacity by leasing another building down the road. But with the two buildings separated by a half mile, it became challenging to efficiently manage production and logistics.

But opportunity knocked when a building next to headquarters suddenly went for sale, and Kaiser jumped at the chance to purchase it. After extensive renovations to the newly acquired building, some executives, along with sales, engineering, R&D, marketing and administration personnel were relocated under one roof. The new building also houses a tech center for tooling and machine demonstrations and a classroom for large sales meetings and presentations.

The existing main factory was also expanded to nearly 27,000 sq. ft. The facility’s new machines and increased automation have resulted in greater output with fewer man-hours and lights-out manufacturing. Management can easily oversee all production, and employees no longer are forced to waste travel time between two production facilities.

“The ultimate reason we did this is to offer the customer more products and services and expand what we can offer to them. Our goal is to continually increase production and turnover,” says Kaiser CEO, Peter Elmer.